I usually use these mid-month posts to expose the archive. I go back to articles I wrote long before starting this blog; updating them if necessary to suit changes that have taken place over the intervening years. Yesterday, as BBC's "From our own Correspondent" celebrated its sixtieth anniversary, I listened to Fergal Keane's moving 'new father' post from Hong Kong in the 1990s. This short article was written just over ten years ago, also after listening to one of Fergal's talks.
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"I was listening to a radio interview with writer and
broadcaster Fergal Keane, who was talking about genocide. Speaking of his experiences in Rwanda, he
said he had recently returned there, and met some of the murderers. He wanted to understand their motives. They had killed, he learned, because others
were doing the same; because they had been told to. 'We shouldn’t forget that it could happen
here, too,' he said. 'Anywhere where
there is poverty and humiliation, all it takes is a monster like Hitler or the
Rwandan leaders to demonise the opposition, and turn ordinary people into
killers.'
"As I reflected whether or not I agreed with Mr Keane’s
analysis of human behaviour, I remembered with some shame feelings I had had
only minutes before. I was driving round
the M25, and for several miles I’d been following a BMW, the driver of which
had his mobile phone firmly clamped to his ear.
I had linked the fact that he was blatantly disregarding the law, to the
expense that I - and most of my colleagues - go to in order to be ‘hands free’. Drawing a comparison between his likely
earnings and ours, I had fantasised about being outside his car window,
snatching his phone and dashing it to the ground, with feelings that were
little less than fury and hatred!
"Jesus taught us to love our enemies; this man was no enemy
but a complete stranger: woe is me … and
how many more like me? Let’s all thank
God for forgiveness!"
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Today, the news is full of reports about asylum-seekers, refugees who have left their former homeland where nothing remains but streets of rubble, and war - nothing to return to - and seek to make a new life somewhere where it is safer. In some places they are met with wire fences, armed police and water cannons; at the very least dislike and resentment. Yes, there may be some who have simply joined the trail to see if they can better themselves, and these should be weeded out and returned whence they came, but they are in the minority.
As to the rest of them, I find myself filled with communal guilt and loathing at a selfish 'I'm all right, Jack' mentality that refuses to welcome these homeless and helpless families into our prosperous western society. I can do no more than repeat my words of ten years ago: "These people are not our enemies, but complete strangers!" A rich young man asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbour?" (Luke 10:29). Now it's time for us to decide whether we are 'priests', 'levites', or 'good Samaritans'.
